It's been a little more than a year since T-Mobile USA bought enough 600MHz spectrum licenses to cover the entire country, and the carrier has now activated the spectrum band in more than 900 cities and towns in 32 states. In 120 of those cities and towns, it's the first time T-Mobile has offered LTE coverage, the company said in an announcement yesterday.

Only a few Samsung, LG, Motorola, and OnePlus phones are capable of using the new spectrum today, but 600MHz support should eventually become a common feature in new phones. It will also take multiple years for T-Mobile to fully deploy the spectrum across the US.

Further Reading

T-Mobile bought this low-band spectrum because it's ideal for covering long distances and penetrating obstacles such as building walls, which have long been problems for T-Mobile's network.

"T-Mobile's Extended Range LTE signals travel twice as far from the tower and are four times better in buildings than mid-band LTE, providing increased coverage and capacity," the company said.

T-Mobile needed the 600MHz spectrum to catch up to AT&T and Verizon Wireless, especially in rural areas. An advertising industry self-regulatory body recently told T-Mobile to stop claiming it has the "best unlimited network." While some speed tests give T-Mobile a leg up over competitors, network studies by RootMetrics show that T-Mobile lags rivals in overall coverage and reliability.

T-Mobile's coverage in big cities was already pretty strong, so it's no surprise that early 600MHz deployments are filling gaps outside the big cities. For example, T-Mobile has deployed 600MHz in California but not in Los Angeles; in Michigan but not in Detroit; in Pennsylvania but not in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh; in Texas but not in Dallas or Houston; and in New York State but not in New York City. The full list of cities and towns with 600MHz deployments was available at this link, but the link appears to be broken now.

T-Mobile said it will bring 600MHz coverage to Puerto Rico this fall.

First phones to support 600MHz

Most smartphone users won't be able to use the 600MHz spectrum today because device manufacturers have to add support for new spectrum bands. As of now, the 600MHz network is compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, Samsung Galaxy S9, Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus, four LG phones, the OnePlus 6, and at least one Motorola phone. More than a dozen 600MHz-capable phones "across all price points will launch by the end of this year, T-Mobile said.

Despite today's limited options, the deployment will help T-Mobile in future years as device manufacturers add support. Apple didn't include 600MHz support in the iPhone 8 and iPhone X released last year, and it's not yet clear whether new iPhone models to be released later this year will support the spectrum band.

T-Mobile was already using 700MHz spectrum in addition to mid-band spectrum such as 1700MHz, 1900MHz, and 2100MHz. But T-Mobile says that its 600MHz haul in last year's spectrum auction tripled its low-band spectrum holdings. T-Mobile is licensed to use an average of 31MHz within the 600MHz spectrum band in each geographic area. T-Mobile uses the "Extended Range LTE" label for both its 600MHz and 700MHz spectrum deployments.

Further Reading

"Immediately after receiving the licenses—less than a year ago—T-Mobile began its rapid 600MHz Extended Range LTE rollout," T-Mobile said. "To accelerate the process of freeing up the spectrum for LTE, T-Mobile is working with broadcasters occupying 600MHz spectrum to assist them in moving to new frequencies."

T-Mobile still has plenty of work to do. There are more than 19,000 cities, towns, and other incorporated places in the US.

While T-Mobile's LTE network already covered more than 300 million Americans, the carrier hasn't revealed how many Americans live in the areas where it has deployed 600MHz spectrum. We asked T-Mobile for more details on the scope of its 600MHz deployment and will update this story if we get a response.

UPDATE: T-Mobile declined to say how many Americans are covered by the 600MHz deployments, but said it is focusing on rural areas. "We started deploying 600MHz first in rural areas where we have the opportunity to expand our coverage and bring choice and competition to consumers with this spectrum," T-Mobile told Ars. "We are starting with areas of the country where we don’t already have 700MHz spectrum."

T-Mobile is trying to buy Sprint, arguing that the companies need each other in order to build a competitive 5G network. But T-Mobile already said it was on track for a strong 5G deployment even before announcing plans to buy Sprint.

The ongoing 600MHz deployment will also help T-Mobile upgrade to 5G because the carrier says it's using "5G-ready equipment" for Extended Range LTE. T-Mobile can thus enable 5G "with the flip of a switch without having to touch towers twice," the company said last year.

Promoted Comments

Is there a way I can tell on my phone (GS9+ TMO) whether it is using the 600MHz signal? Right now, coverage in my house is not great and I rely on WiFi calling. I'd love to know if I am already on the 600MHz coverage or not (PA, outside of Philadelphia.)

Well T-Mobile's 700 MHz (Band 12) improved the coverage for me by a lot. Went from unusable indoors at a grocery store we shop at and very weak at work, to rock solid pretty much everywhere. I also get a lot less gaps in coverage when on a roadtrip. So adding 600 Mhz can only make things better in that respect.

I do dislike how 5G is becoming a pretty useless buzzword. 600 MHz as part of "5G" may improve coverage but it isn't going to increase speeds (or total tower throughput to reduce congestion). What matters is how much frequency range is available for the channel, because you can only get so many bits per Hertz (bps/Hz). 20 to 50 Mhz isn't going to get you the gigabit speeds or higher caps that many think of when they hear 5G. For that you need hundreds of Mhz and the only place that much spectrum is available is up in the 28 Ghz or 40 Ghz bands. Those high frequencies have short range and poor indoor reception meaning you need lots of smaller towers and possibly indoor microcells.

The fact that long range low bandwidth 600 Mhz and ultra short range extremely high bandwidth 40 Ghz are both being called 5G makes 5G pretty much a meaningless term. My carrier has rolled out 5G. Ok that tells me absolutely nothing about what to expect in terms of coverage, speed, or service plans.

79 Reader Comments

I want to see a zoom-able map. Their map has always looked fantastic for my state at a national level but as soon as you moved it in a few notches, everything faded away. Had huge gaps of 3G & partner that magically blended in with all the 4G when zoomed out far enough.

I am highly skeptical of their map of Alaska coverage, considering our sparse population, and that the state is as wide and tall as the contiguous 48 states. There can't be enough cell towers close enough together to cover the state that solidly. Looking more closely though, the entire country, and some of the ocean, are all solid.

These maps tend to be bunk to me. Would they really have signal in Barrow/Utqiaġvik? Net10 cut off my cell access there after about a day in that town. I can't imaging T-Mobile would be better about it.

Well T-Mobile's 700 MHz (Band 12) improved the coverage for me by a lot. Went from unusable indoors at a grocery store we shop at and very weak at work, to rock solid pretty much everywhere. I also get a lot less gaps in coverage when on a roadtrip. So adding 600 Mhz can only make things better in that respect.

I do dislike how 5G is becoming a pretty useless buzzword. 600 MHz as part of "5G" may improve coverage but it isn't going to increase speeds (or total tower throughput to reduce congestion). What matters is how much frequency range is available for the channel, because you can only get so many bits per Hertz (bps/Hz). 20 to 50 Mhz isn't going to get you the gigabit speeds or higher caps that many think of when they hear 5G. For that you need hundreds of Mhz and the only place that much spectrum is available is up in the 28 Ghz or 40 Ghz bands. Those high frequencies have short range and poor indoor reception meaning you need lots of smaller towers and possibly indoor microcells.

The fact that long range low bandwidth 600 Mhz and ultra short range extremely high bandwidth 40 Ghz are both being called 5G makes 5G pretty much a meaningless term. My carrier has rolled out 5G. Ok that tells me absolutely nothing about what to expect in terms of coverage, speed, or service plans.

I am highly skeptical of their map of Alaska coverage, considering our sparse population, and that the state is as wide and tall as the contiguous 48 states. There can't be enough cell towers close enough together to cover the state that solidly. Looking more closely though, the entire country, and some of the ocean, are all solid.

These maps tend to be bunk to me. Would they really have signal in Barrow/Utqiaġvik? Net10 cut off my cell access there after about a day in that town. I can't imaging T-Mobile would be better about it.

To be clear that map isn't tower coverage it is how much spectrum they own. So they have 20 Mhz in the 600 Mhz band available across all of Alaska. It is entirely possible (even likely) that exact 0% of that is currently operating right now. A nationwide map of the currently active 600 Mhz tower coverage would be a lot less impressive.

I want to see a zoom-able map. Their map has always looked fantastic for my state at a national level but as soon as you moved it in a few notches, everything faded away. Had huge gaps of 3G & partner that magically blended in with all the 4G when zoomed out far enough.

There's been a gap in coverage on a major street (3 lanes each direction, 10s of thousands of cars daily) between my town and Scottsdale that's been there for years. Every phone I've had drops calls at the exact same spot for at least 5 years - and it's not just me - it affects everyone using t-mobile.

So this is nice and all, but how about fixing your existing infrastructure too?

I want to see a zoom-able map. Their map has always looked fantastic for my state at a national level but as soon as you moved it in a few notches, everything faded away. Had huge gaps of 3G & partner that magically blended in with all the 4G when zoomed out far enough.

There's been a gap in coverage on a major street (3 lanes each direction, 10s of thousands of cars daily) between my town and Scottsdale that's been there for years. Every phone I've had drops calls at the exact same spot for at least 5 years - and it's not just me - it affects everyone using t-mobile.

So this is nice and all, but how about fixing your existing infrastructure too?

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's more likely that the residences of said area (I think I know where you speak of) don't want any cell towers nearby.

PSA: Stay the fuck away from OnePlus. I got my OnePlus 6 shipped to my work memorial day weekend. It arrived Friday, picked it up Monday memorial day when I came back in town. Swung by the office. There was a 1mm scratch on the screen right out of the box. I called them Tuesday. I'm being denied a return because, and I quote "You didn't contact us within 24 hours of delivery."

Maybe because I was fucking camping and 50 miles out of town you aholes. Now it's likely I'll have to repair this damn thing out of pocket. Never again will I purchase OnePlus.

PSA: Stay the fuck away from OnePlus. I got my OnePlus 6 shipped to my work memorial day weekend. It arrived Friday, picked it up Monday memorial day when I came back in town. Swung by the office. There was a 1mm scratch on the screen right out of the box. I called them Tuesday. I'm being denied a return because, and I quote "You didn't contact us within 24 hours of delivery."

Maybe because I was fucking camping and 50 miles out of town you aholes. Now it's likely I'll have to repair this damn thing out of pocket. Never again will I purchase OnePlus.

PSA: Stay the fuck away from OnePlus. I got my OnePlus 6 shipped to my work memorial day weekend. It arrived Friday, picked it up Monday memorial day when I came back in town. Swung by the office. There was a 1mm scratch on the screen right out of the box. I called them Tuesday. I'm being denied a return because, and I quote "You didn't contact us within 24 hours of delivery."

Maybe because I was fucking camping and 50 miles out of town you aholes. Now it's likely I'll have to repair this damn thing out of pocket. Never again will I purchase OnePlus.

Seriously? Wow. That sounds like a chargeback to me.

Yeah I would be calling the credit card company. You purchased an undamaged phone you received a damaged one. The vendor refuses to rectify the situation. That is an open and shut chargeback.

Still thanks for the heads up. Will never purchase a OnePlus at least won't purchase directly from OnePlus.

Across all price points, that's interesting. Does Qualcomm have a new modem for the 6xx series coming up that supports 3x carrier aggregation? Because AFAIK that's currently required to use band 71, there's not really enough spectrum available to use it in simple 2x CA with their primary AWS band because it would quickly get overloaded.

*edit*Huh, they list the LG K30 on one of the linked pages, that's an SD425 powered phone, definitely no 3x CA there! I wonder if it's 'compatible' in that it will drop your call/data connection and search for band 71 if it can't find any other bands to connect to. Would be interesting to know how it's working on a technical level.

I have sooo wanted to switch to TMobile from ATT but in my area the service just isn't reliable. Sure, wifi calling is fine, but I don't want to be dead as soon as I get to the driveway, and that's exactly how it is in a large area in my town.

I want to see a zoom-able map. Their map has always looked fantastic for my state at a national level but as soon as you moved it in a few notches, everything faded away. Had huge gaps of 3G & partner that magically blended in with all the 4G when zoomed out far enough.

There's been a gap in coverage on a major street (3 lanes each direction, 10s of thousands of cars daily) between my town and Scottsdale that's been there for years. Every phone I've had drops calls at the exact same spot for at least 5 years - and it's not just me - it affects everyone using t-mobile.

So this is nice and all, but how about fixing your existing infrastructure too?

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's more likely that the residences of said area (I think I know where you speak of) don't want any cell towers nearby.

Ruin the view and all that...

There are plenty of cell towers there including ones that look like fake cacti. It's only a problem with t-mob. Maybe Sprint. AT&T and Verizon have no issues AFAIK.

I have sooo wanted to switch to TMobile from ATT but in my area the service just isn't reliable. Sure, wifi calling is fine, but I don't want to be dead as soon as I get to the driveway, and that's exactly how it is in a large area in my town.

I'd like to see a before and after map, and ideally zoomable.

Have you tried it with a band 12 compatible device? In most non-rural areas of the country we've had great service since we got a band 12 hotspot and my son upgraded to a band 12 compatible phone. It's not on par with Verizon but it's been getting close to AT&T.

A note on TMobile's coverage maps:They use their mytmobile app on customer's phones to map out where they have coverage so their maps are fairly accurate, but you have to know how to read them.

If you zoom in, you'll see different shades of pink. The lightest shade is for 'fair' coverage. What 'fair' coverage means is that there's a chance you'll get a signal, but it is just as likely you won't. As long as you understand this point, their maps are pretty good.

A note about Alaska: they have a 100% roaming agreement (no bandwidth limitations) with GCI, which has extensive coverage in Alaska. So when you go there, you are likely to have good coverage. If you live there, though, you can't roam indefinitely, and would be better off switching to GCI.

I want to see a zoom-able map. Their map has always looked fantastic for my state at a national level but as soon as you moved it in a few notches, everything faded away. Had huge gaps of 3G & partner that magically blended in with all the 4G when zoomed out far enough.

There's been a gap in coverage on a major street (3 lanes each direction, 10s of thousands of cars daily) between my town and Scottsdale that's been there for years. Every phone I've had drops calls at the exact same spot for at least 5 years - and it's not just me - it affects everyone using t-mobile.

So this is nice and all, but how about fixing your existing infrastructure too?

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's more likely that the residences of said area (I think I know where you speak of) don't want any cell towers nearby.

Ruin the view and all that...

There are plenty of cell towers there including ones that look like fake cacti. It's only a problem with t-mob. Maybe Sprint. AT&T and Verizon have no issues AFAIK.

That's really rather cool. It's amazing what we will do to avoid the wrath of NIMBY.

Across all price points, that's interesting. Does Qualcomm have a new modem for the 6xx series coming up that supports 3x carrier aggregation? Because AFAIK that's currently required to use band 71, there's not really enough spectrum available to use it in simple 2x CA with their primary AWS band because it would quickly get overloaded.

*edit*Huh, they list the LG K30 on one of the linked pages, that's an SD425 powered phone, definitely no 3x CA there! I wonder if it's 'compatible' in that it will drop your call/data connection and search for band 71 if it can't find any other bands to connect to. Would be interesting to know how it's working on a technical level.

Phone can just do a handover if the band 71 tower is detected to have better signal strength during periodic neighbor cell measurements. No need to drop the connection (LTE is all data anyway, VoLTE is just a QoS data channel. Carrier aggregation is just there to provide more pipes for data so that you can get better bandwidth.

While some speed tests give T-Mobile a leg up over competitors, network studies by RootMetrics show that T-Mobile lags rivals in overall coverage and reliability.

What also lags behind at T-Mobile is truth in advertising when it comes to the cost of their plans. I have been battling with them for months because they routinely overcharge me, claim that they have fixed the problem, and then overcharge me again the next month.

Their customer service seems to honestly be shocked that I would consider this to be a problem.

Well T-Mobile's 700 MHz (Band 12) improved a lot of coverage for me. Went from unusable indoors at a grocery store we shop at and very weak at work, to rock solid pretty much everywhere. I also get a lot less gaps in coverage when on a roadtrip. So adding 600 Mhz can only make things better in that respect.

I do dislike how 5G is becoming a pretty useless buzzword. 600 MHz as part of "5G" may improve coverage but it isn't going to increase speeds (or total tower throughput to reduce congestion). What matters is how much frequency range is available for the channel cause you can only get so many bits per Hertz (bps/Hz). 20 to 50 Mhz isn't going to get you the gigabit speeds or higher caps that many think of when they hear 5G. For that you needs hundreds of Mhz and the only place that much spectrum is available is up in the 28 Ghz or 40 Ghz bands. Those high frequencies have short range and poor indoor reception meaning you need lots of smaller towers.

The fact that long range low bandwidth 600 Mhz and ultra short range extremely high bandwidth 40 Ghz are both being called 5G makes 5G pretty much a meaningless term. My carrier has rolled out 5G. Ok that tells me absolutely nothing about what to expect in terms of coverage, speed, or service plans.

My thoughts exactly. I thought the 5G standard was was based microwave frequencies. Talk about making "5G" a useless moniker, thanks T-Mobile.

I want to see a zoom-able map. Their map has always looked fantastic for my state at a national level but as soon as you moved it in a few notches, everything faded away. Had huge gaps of 3G & partner that magically blended in with all the 4G when zoomed out far enough.

There's been a gap in coverage on a major street (3 lanes each direction, 10s of thousands of cars daily) between my town and Scottsdale that's been there for years. Every phone I've had drops calls at the exact same spot for at least 5 years - and it's not just me - it affects everyone using t-mobile.

So this is nice and all, but how about fixing your existing infrastructure too?

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's more likely that the residences of said area (I think I know where you speak of) don't want any cell towers nearby.

Ruin the view and all that...

There are plenty of cell towers there including ones that look like fake cacti. It's only a problem with t-mob. Maybe Sprint. AT&T and Verizon have no issues AFAIK.

That's really rather cool. It's amazing what we will do to avoid the wrath of NIMBY.

never heard that NIMBY quote before, in the UK it tends to be the "Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS)" type of pepole

but yes we do have issues with some locals with masts and VDSL cabs (some areas are without VDSL or mobile coverage because the locals refused to allow a cab to be installed so sucks for them to be on ADSL because of 1-3 people) these type of people tend to be on the local council so have more power to reject planning permission

best one i thought was funny the locals was trying to stop a EE UK mast from been installed in the small town for about 2 years but around the time they tryed to stop it EE had installed with planning permission to install a concealed mast and was there for 2 years (as far as i am ware still is)

as long as the technogitly is LTE yes it can migrate between any radio band without loss of data connection,, as long as it setup correctly in UK we did have issues with some masts that was configured incorrectly so when it handed over it was typically handing over to the incorrect Cell on the mast causing data/call drop out then it reconnected to correct cell (LTE recoverys far faster than 3G but it was still a instant disconnect and was up to how the app handled it when it happened for data most apps would recover but calls would drop instantly)

I have sooo wanted to switch to TMobile from ATT but in my area the service just isn't reliable. Sure, wifi calling is fine, but I don't want to be dead as soon as I get to the driveway, and that's exactly how it is in a large area in my town.

The article specifically mentions the S8 Active as compatible with the network up grades and to the best of my knowledge the vanilla S8 and the S8 Active (for the US market) both have the same Snapdragon 835 SoC. Am I missing something here?

Is there a way I can tell on my phone (GS9+ TMO) whether it is using the 600MHz signal? Right now, coverage in my house is not great and I rely on WiFi calling. I'd love to know if I am already on the 600MHz coverage or not (PA, outside of Philadelphia.)

Is there a way I can tell on my phone (GS9+ TMO) whether it is using the 600MHz signal? Right now, coverage in my house is not great and I rely on WiFi calling. I'd love to know if I am already on the 600MHz coverage or not (PA, outside of Philadelphia.)

Find the specs of that model and research the chip used for the antenna.

I wonder if the latest Google Project Fi phones are able to take advantage of this? Or if T-Mo will even let Project Fi take advantage of it. They might, at least initially, want to keep this upgrade for their own subscribers, not MVNOs.

Well, on the plus side, if that map is accurate, it looks like T-Mo will finally have coverage in much of Apalachia, where they used to have giant holes (pretty much all of WV, parts of KY and OH, from my experience).

I have sooo wanted to switch to TMobile from ATT but in my area the service just isn't reliable. Sure, wifi calling is fine, but I don't want to be dead as soon as I get to the driveway, and that's exactly how it is in a large area in my town.

I'd like to see a before and after map, and ideally zoomable.

Have you tried it with a band 12 compatible device? In most non-rural areas of the country we've had great service since we got a band 12 hotspot and my son upgraded to a band 12 compatible phone. It's not on par with Verizon but it's been getting close to AT&T.

Yeah. Band 12 was an absolute game changer here (MN). Can't wait to see what the 600mhz spectrum does.

The article specifically mentions the S8 Active as compatible with the network up grades and to the best of my knowledge the vanilla S8 and the S8 Active (for the US market) both have the same Snapdragon 835 SoC. Am I missing something here?

S8 Active came out after they started rolling out band 71 so they went through FCC testing for band 71, the regular S8 did not and so the radio firmware won't have it enabled, even if it does have the correct antennas for band 71, which is not a given.

Is there a way I can tell on my phone (GS9+ TMO) whether it is using the 600MHz signal? Right now, coverage in my house is not great and I rely on WiFi calling. I'd love to know if I am already on the 600MHz coverage or not (PA, outside of Philadelphia.)

Find the specs of that model and research the chip used for the antenna.

I wonder if the latest Google Project Fi phones are able to take advantage of this? Or if T-Mo will even let Project Fi take advantage of it. They might, at least initially, want to keep this upgrade for their own subscribers, not MVNOs.

Well, on the plus side, if that map is accurate, it looks like T-Mo will finally have coverage in much of Apalachia, where they used to have giant holes (pretty much all of WV, parts of KY and OH, from my experience).